From the outside, I'm living a perfect life. I am 29 and have a great corporate job with lots of leadership responsibility. I have a beautiful girlfriend who loves me and we've been dating for almost a year. I have family that loves and cares about me. I have plenty of spending money and no student debt. I go to church every week and accepted Jesus Christ into my life about a year and a half ago.
This last weekend, I hit a breaking point. I feel sick inside. I've been dry-heaving and have lost all hope to do anything. I am seriously considering quitting my job, even though I am in the wake of some huge projects that I am leading and my team is counting on me to deliver. I called in sick today and ditched some important meetings. I want to push my girlfriend away to protect her and keep her out of this darkness. I can't help talk about crappy painful things and I feel my life deteriorating. I don't know what to do, and I am scared and I feel I want to give up on everything, curl in a ball and just cry. Or quit everything, sell everything and move away to an island with no responsibilities and no one to hurt. I am saying self-sabotaging things about myself and inviting more pain into my life and the terrible pain feels good for some awful reason. This is terrible, I hate it. My chest is numb, I can barely think and I just want to give up. Please help.
I'm going to go see a therapist right now. Thank you.
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JamesGilmore
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I hope the therapist helped. Have you been to see a medical doctor? Given your age, and if this is all new to you, make sure you are exploring all avenues. This is a great place to get support. We all get it. If you need to, seek in patient care. Especially if you start to become suicidal.
Thanks AZ. This has been a wave. I feel like I’m cycling through feeling great and feeling terrible again. I spoke to a coworker today and the man literally cured me up. I want to stay away from drugs as I think they are not a permanent fix and ultimately just numb me and don’t help solve the roots of the problem. I’m thinking positive and going to make it through this just fine. Thanks for your support.
James, maybe the work projects and work in general is getting you down. The stress has to be terrible. If you've done well for every thing you do, and have this "perfect life", it could be so overwhelming that you might fail the very next task. And you feel you would lose everything if that happened. Don't let the worry take over. Ask for help on the projects if you are having problems dealing with both. Keep fighting the urge to end your life. You are valuable, to yourself and lots of other people. You have strength. You are calm and capable.
True, I think I built up a wave of stress between my work and trying to be perfect for my girlfriend that I just cracked. I’m going to look back on this time and smile in the future because I know I will get through it just fine. I’m going to work it out - deliver on the projects, be a good boyfriend and reprioritize my tasks and my life. My health, happiness, faith, family, and career are important to me. I need to keep God, myself, my family, and my career prioritized in that order and slowly work back towards taking on greater responsibility and leadership.
My head is still a little fuzzy and I don’t know how long I can keep up this good feeling, but I think I’m making great progress. I felt great yesterday after my run filled with chanting positive mantras and listening to the book called “the secret”. I was literally chanting “I am great” over and over again. Then sulked into a darkness today at work, was ready to toss in the towel and quit and go live in my parents basement, lose my girlfriend, and then my coworker lifted me out with some amazing life coaching. This cycle of emotions is crazy. I love people and am thankful for their willingness to help. Including you all.
One hot tip from my coworker to cut through the mess was to reclassify tasks into four quadrants. Urgent High importance, High importance, Urgent not important, and not important. I’m going to stick to quadrant 1 and some of quadrant 2 as I work through this and get back towards great health.
Is it possible to take some time off from work to get your health in order? I’m sorry you’re feeling this way. I hope I can be of some help to you. With lots of love and prayers in my heart to yours.😊
Thanks for the kind words and prayers!! I’m making good incremental progress back towards good health and we have an important Board Meeting next week so all hands are on deck to deliver. I am thinking of taking time off after that. And just slowing down. And remembering my priorities- God, myself, family/girlfriend, career. I think if I keep that in order I’m going to lift out of this mess permanently. I’m also going to excercise in the mornings to boost my endorphins.
Right on!! I like your course of action. God will be there with you every step of the way. I believe in you. I’d love to hear about your progress as well. I’m here for you too. We are all children of God and we must help one another. It is His will.
Thanks, it came back in a wave and now I once again feel the dark weight of depression. Ugh not fun.
I’m wondering if the power of positive thinking will help more than talking to someone about how I truly feel (dark, negative, depressed).
I don’t want to be a sad, lonely, dark person. I want to be alive, confident, and free to pursue the life God created for me.
Maybe I can treat this depression as a fortunate event in my life. Something that is guiding me towards a better life. Toughening me up for what is to come. The problem is that I can’t trust myself to make good decisions when I am in this state of mind. So I cannot discern whether my job and identity needs a facelift or if I am just trying to run away from the pain. Escape from what is only to experience again in a different mask. I pray that God shows me what next steps to take and I will surrender to his will.
I am not a fan of meds, but I have to agree. Full physical and a visit with a psychiatrist is in order. Hate to see you have such high/low/lower spella!
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